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“What? How?”
“An accident. On the M25.”
Teresa’s mind was racing. Henrietta still sat sobbing, her head in her hands. Teresa thought about Annabel. How were they going to tell her? How would she react when she heard the news? Teresa couldn’t imagine what to say to Henrietta. Before Teresa decided what to do, she saw Annabel stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking worried at the sight of her mother and grandmother appearing so distressed.
“It’s Daddy, isn’t it?” she said before Teresa had time to react to her presence.
“Come here darling,” said Teresa, beckoning her to sit on her lap, or at the very least, on the arm of her chair.
“What happened?”
Henrietta sobbed even more.
“There was an accident,” Teresa began. “A car accident.”
“Was daddy hurt?”
“He was, Annabel.”
“How much?”
“Your dad and Jennifer didn’t make it, Annabel.”
“You mean they’re dead?”
Teresa found it hard to form words.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” said Annabel.
It surprised Teresa at how relaxed her daughter seemed to be. She wondered whether Annabel understood the significance of what Teresa was trying to tell her.
“Are you hungry?” Teresa asked. “Would you like me to make you something to eat?”
“May I play in my bedroom until dinner’s ready?”
“I’ll come and get you when it’s ready. Do you need anything?”
“No thank you,” said Annabel and rushed up the stairs.
Teresa knew Annabel was not okay, but she didn’t know how to deal with the situation at that moment. She looked at Henrietta, who was still sobbing into her hands and didn’t seem like she would be communicative for a while. Teresa saw what there was in the kitchen to make them all something to eat.
Not registering the contents of the shelves in the refrigerator, she did the same with the cupboards and found she had to repeat the process and force herself to take notice of what each storage space contained. That achieved, she was still no nearer to being able to decide what to make for dinner. She stretched her hands out on the counter and rested her weight on them. Then she took a deep breath and resolved to be strong for the moment, for Annabel’s sake at least. She was less worried about Henrietta. This was not her house, and she thought she should at least seek some approval from the old woman for her plan for dinner.
“I was thinking of just doing beans on toast for Annabel. What do you think?” Teresa said, poking her head into the living room.
Henrietta just nodded; her head still buried in her hands.
“Would you like some?”
Henrietta shook her head.
“You should eat something.”
She shook her head once more. Teresa considered arguing with the old woman but thought better of it and returned to the kitchen to open a tin of beans.
“Dinner’s ready,” Teresa shouted up the stairs once the plates of steaming beans on toast were on the table. “Annabel?”
There was no answer, so Teresa ascended the stairs and knocked on Annabel’s door.
“Annabel? May I come in?”
There was no answer.
“Annabel?”
Teresa opened the door and saw Annabel lying face down on the bed. She sat next to her.
“Dinner’s ready, darling. Are you going to come downstairs?”
Annabel did not stir, but kept her head buried in the pillow. Annabel resisted Teresa’s attempt to pull her over onto her side. When she pulled Annabel over, she saw she was crying.
“It’s okay to cry. We all feel like that.”
“Not you. You hated Daddy,” Annabel blurted.
“That’s not true. He left me. Anyway...”
Teresa decided the best policy was for her to shut up and she held her daughter and let her cry.
“Our dinner is getting cold,” she said after a while.
“I don’t want it.”
“We still have to eat.”
No response. Teresa gave it a few more minutes.
“Come on then,” she said at last. “I’ve made beans on toast.”
Annabel must have been hungry, because the promise of beans on toast roused her interest.
“Come on then,” said Teresa, resisting the temptation to tell her daughter that the food would make her feel better.
Annabel followed Teresa downstairs, where they found Henrietta making a large gin and tonic.
“Would you like one?” she asked Teresa.
“No, thank you.”
Teresa wanted one. A large one. But she wanted Henrietta to believe that she had left the drink behind her. Her mind was already circling the inevitable issue of custody.
“Sit at the table,” Teresa told her daughter. “I’ll just heat it up in the microwave.”
She took Annabel’s plate through to the kitchen where, alone, she exhaled and steadied herself for the next stage of acting in which she would have to pretend to be strong for not just Annabel but also Henrietta, it seemed.
“You should eat too,” Teresa said to Henrietta as she placed Annabel’s reheated dinner in front of her.
“No thanks,” said Henrietta. “I’ll have something later.”
Teresa reheated her meal, sat next to Annabel and the two of them ate in silence, except for the low humming sound that Annabel always made when she was enjoying her food.
Teresa cleaned away the empty plates.
“Pudding?”
Annabel shook her head.
“Right. Well, let’s get you to bed, and I’ll read you a story. How about that?”
Annabel burst into tears. William had been the one who always read her stories, even when he and Teresa had been together.
Teresa rested her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Say night night to your grandma.”
Annabel rushed into Henrietta’s embrace, and the two sobbed together.
“Come on then,” Teresa said when the hug appeared to be reaching its natural conclusion, and Annabel left her grandma and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
“I’ll put her to bed. Then I’ll come back down and make you something to eat.”
“Take your time.”
Teresa followed Annabel upstairs and found her sat on her bed.
“Where are your pyjamas?”
Annabel reached under her pillow and pulled out a crumpled bundle of nightclothes.
“Let’s get them on you and brush your teeth. Then I’ll read you a story. What was your dad reading to you?”
Annabel pointed to the bedside table where a tatty-looking copy of The Wind in the Willows was sitting.
“Okay. I don’t know that one. It’ll be new for me too. Come on then. Change into your pyjamas, darling. There’s a good girl.”
Annabel was reluctant, but she slipped off her clothes, which she dumped into her wash basket. Then she climbed into her pyjamas and left the room for the bathroom, where she went to the toilet and brushed her teeth. A moment later, she returned and flopped down on the bed before switching on the night light on the bedside table.
“You need to turn off the big light,” Annabel said as she pointed to a Minnie Mouse lampshade in the centre of the ceiling.
“Okay.”
Teresa switched off the light and then picked up the book and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Your Dad read to you in this light?”
Annabel nodded.
“He must have better eyesight than me,” Teresa said before she remembered that she should have spoken about William in the past tense. She looked at Annabel to see if she had noticed, and offered a weak smile. “Okay, let’s see where you got up to.”
“They have just sent Toad to a prison in a castle for stealing a car.”
Teresa found an old credit card inserted between two pages as a bookmark. She began to read, but found many words she was unsure how to pronounce.
“Daddy does different voices,” Annabel said as soon as Teresa attempted to read a line of dialogue.
“Does he? Okay, here goes.”
Teresa started to read the line in a made-up voice.
“That’s not how he speaks.” Annabel protested.
“No? How does he speak then?”
“Like this,” she said, doing an impression of her father doing an impression of Toad.
“Okay. How about this?” Teresa did her best impression of Annabel, doing an impression of her father, doing an impression of Toad.
“Not bad.”
Annabel’s opinion filled Teresa with relief. The last thing she wanted was a dissatisfied daughter on the grounds of Teresa’s inability to do a passable impression of a talking amphibian.
Before she reached the end of the chapter, Teresa thought Annabel had dropped off to sleep, so she began reading more slowly and quietly until she stopped altogether and closed the book. Annabel did not stir. Teresa placed the book on the bedside table, turned out the night light and backed out of the room, being careful as she shut the door behind her.
Teresa stood on the landing and breathed a heavy sigh. That was dealt with. Now she would have to deal with Henrietta. She straightened herself and went downstairs to the living room, where Henrietta was making herself a second gin. Or perhaps it was a third or a fourth.
“What shall I make you to eat?” Teresa asked her ex-mother-in-law.
Henrietta just shook her head.
“But you have to eat something.”
Another shake of the head.
“Then what about cheese and biscuits?”
A nod.
“Good. I’ll be right back.”
Teresa found some savoury biscuits in the cupboard and couldn’t decide between the brie and stilton in the fridge so she made a selection of both, thinking she wouldn’t mind some herself.
When she returned to the living room, she saw Henrietta slumped on the sofa, so Teresa placed the plate on the coffee table next to a large book called Underwater Dogs, which boasted a cover photo of a dog underwater. She wasn’t sure whether Henrietta was sleeping or deep in meditation.
“Henrietta?”
The old woman started snoring, and Teresa wondered whether she should wake her and try to get her upstairs to her bedroom or leave her on the sofa and cover her with a blanket.
“Henrietta?” Teresa said louder, getting up, going over to the sofa and giving Henrietta’s shoulder a little shake.
The grumpy response to this intrusion was enough for Teresa to decide that blanket was the best option.
Teresa took the cheese and crackers up to her room and returned moments later with a spare blanket, which she found in the wardrobe. She draped it over the old woman and went back upstairs for a long shower.
As she stood under the torrent of hot water, Teresa wondered what would happen next. Henrietta hadn’t told her anything about what would happen to William’s and Jennifer’s bodies. Teresa assumed they would take them to a mortuary or something, but didn’t Henrietta have to identify them? In Brazil, the authorities would have insisted on burying them within 24 hours, but here in cold England, where bodies rotted slower, the rules were more relaxed. Teresa wondered when the funeral would be. She wondered whether she would have to contact the school and postpone her return to work so she could attend the funeral. But most of all, Teresa worried about what would happen to Annabel. Would this mean she would regain custody and be able to take her daughter back to Brazil? Would Annabel want to return with her, or would Henrietta try to keep her in the UK?
It was all too much for Teresa to contemplate and she turned off the shower and towelled herself dry. Two days ago, William stood in the doorway while she was wearing her towel and she had felt a tingle of excitement, which made her wonder what life would have been like had they stayed together. They wouldn’t have lived in this house, which was no doubt the result of Jennifer’s money. Teresa wondered whether Jennifer had a will and, if so, to whom she had left her money. She had never met Jennifer’s family, but she must have some, somewhere.
Her head was so full of these thoughts she could not focus enough to read the book on Brazilian folklore. It was the early hours of the morning before she dropped off to sleep.